Page 39 of Lethal Obsession

“I’m relieved to know I don’t fall into either category.” I pour them both more champagne. “So what would a pirate say, then?”

Lourdes snorts into her champagne glass. “What?” she says, in answer to Benny’s reproachful look. “You deserved that, and you know it.”

For a moment Benny looks like he still might throw the drink at me, or even both of us. Then he sits back in his seat and rolls his eyes. “Fine, then.” He gives me a slightly suspicious look. “Give me your best try at a compliment, and I’ll tell you how badly it sucks.”

“I told you, I have no idea about music.” I fix him with my lone eye. “I need words, Benny,” I say sternly. “Good words that will make Ofelia happy.”

Saying her name aloud feels illicit. Dangerous.

Addictive.

“Make her happy?” Benny, surprisingly undaunted, casts me an acid glance. “That would be a first for you.”

“Benny!” Lourdes hisses, glaring at him. “Just be honest,” she says hastily, turning to me. “Musicians are like everyone else. We hate false compliments, or people who try to sound smart when it’s obvious they don’t know what they’re talking about. We always know when we’ve played a piece well. What we care about is how the music made you feel. That’s the part we can’t know.”

Benny tilts his head to touch hers. “Speak sense you do, young padawan.” He glances across at me. “She’s right. Just don’t bullshit, and you’ll be fine.”

I nod. “That works for me.” I raise my glass to Lourdes. “Thank you.”

She gives me a tentative smile. “De nada.”

I swallow my Scotch and pour another. “So,” I say, turning to Benny, “if the limo ride was the dream, what, exactly, was the fantasy?”

Lourdes snorts into her glass for a second time. “What?” she protests, holding her hands up at Benny. “Don’t give me your death stare, you big queen. Answer the man. Fine,” she goes on, giggling when he just shakes his head and drinks instead of answering. “Benny was hoping that your Swedish friend might offer him a ride in his limo,” she says, giving him a sly look. “More than one type of ride, if we’re being totally honest here.”

“Lourdes!” Benny slaps her arm. “Two drinks, and you’re spilling all my secrets.”

“So what? It’s true, isn’t it?” She turns back to me. “Benny has had a serious thing for Lars Andersson ever since Ofelia’s twenty-first.”

Ofelia’s twenty-first.

The reference falls over the jovial atmosphere in the limousine like a wet blanket.

Lourdes reddens. Benny stares studiously out the window.

And I’m suddenly back on that darkened terrace, Ofelia’s dress bunched in one fist, her thigh under my other, my cock so hard I almost took her there and then and fuck the consequences.

Christ.

I swallow nearly the entire glass of Scotch in one mouthful. “Well, Benny,” I say, relieved that my voice, at least, sounds normal. “This is probably a good time to mention that Lars is an absolutely toxic fuckboy who screws anything that walks, be it male, female, or anything in between. He’ll give you the night of your life, but then he’ll ghost you worse than Casper. I can put in a good word for you if you like, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Their heads swivel toward me so fast they almost come off their shoulders, and Benny nearly chokes on his drink. “Toxic fuckboy?” he gasps, half laughing, half scandalized.

“That’s pirate language,” I say lightly. “I could put it more elegantly, if you’d prefer.”

“Oh, no.” Lourdes waves her glass at me, laughing her head off. “Believe me, toxic fuckboys are Benny’s favorite kind. And we’re good with pirate language.” She nudges Benny. “Aren’t we?”

“Maybe.” He nods slowly, eyes still watering, and for the first time, he gives me something approaching an actual smile. “I guess it might be growing on me, yeah.”

I enter the downstairs restaurant part of the venue with a healthy degree of trepidation, despite the slight defrosting of relations with Ofelia’s friends.

It’s been a long time since I walked into a venue I didn’t either own or was doing business in. Even longer since I’ve had to concern myself with moderating my behavior. That’s the thing about being the head of a criminal organization notorious for egregious violence: one’s reputation tends to supersede the need to master social niceties.

And there I am using the objective third person like I was fucking born to it.

I smile inwardly as we take the narrow staircase up to the bar, partly at my own inner monologue and in part from an affectionate humor at the peculiarities of European cities. The staircase opens to a French Revolution–style salon, with a painted ceiling, modern-meets-classical furnishings, and comfortable seating around low tables. A bar like this would be derided in Miami as the worst kind of poky dive. Here, it feels not only chic but fabulously illicit.

I like it. Not as much as the rough, jovial bars in the Spanish villages near my sister’s house, but definitely better than I do Miami’s neon and glitz.